4 The Literacy Narrative Rubric

Hopefully, at this point, you’re familiar with what a rubric is, but for those who may not be sure, a brief review might be helpful. A rubric is a list of criteria that will be used to judge your finished work. Each criteria has an explanation that details what is expected of a final paper that meets expectations, along with other descriptions of various stages of partial fulfillment of the same. When your final paper is graded, one of the descriptors will be chosen for each category, and you will earn the points associated with that descriptor. The points are added together to get your final grade. If you want to do well on a particular assignment, it is critical that you understand the rubric connected to it since that is where your grade will come from.

The rubric for the final version of the literacy narrative contains the following categories and their corresponding descriptions:

• Narration (20 pts) – Is there at least ONE story that is important to the essay, and is it told well? Remember, a story usually has things like bits of dialogue, descriptions of people and places, action words, and movement in time and/or space. Personal examples aren’t the same thing as a story. If you say something like, “One time I went skiing with my family and broke my leg,” that’s not a story. However, it could easily be turned into a story by describing the scene, providing details of the day or the event, including dialogue or what was going through your head, and portraying the way the events unfolded. Usually, a story (even a short one) will take at least one full paragraph to tell, if not more!
• Reflection (20 pts) – Do you adequately analyze or discuss your stories within the essay so the reader understands the point? Remember, an essay needs to have more than just story-telling or listing examples. At some point, you need to talk about, analyze, or “reflect” on those stories. This might come in small chunks, like a sentence or two after each story, in large chunks, such as several paragraphs, or even at the end of an essay in the conclusion. When you analyze a story or an event, it makes it a narrative essay rather than just a story.
• Unity (15 pts) – Do the stories and reflection in your essay all work together to support your main point? Is that point clear? Remember, everything you include in your essay should support your main point. Every story, description, example, quote, and statement should be in the service of making that point. Unnecessary details and irrelevant stories are distracting. An essay isn’t like a journal entry or a free-writing activity where you write everything that comes to your head—you need to be selective and only include those things that help make your point.
• Editing (15 pts) – Is the essay properly formatted and free of distracting errors? Your essay doesn’t have to be perfect and completely free of errors, but it should have a polished feel about it. A few minor errors are fine as long as they aren’t distracting and as long as the paper still feels like a final draft. It should definitely feel like you did your best to clean it up and prepare it for publication.
• Word Count (20 pts) – Is the essay at least 1000 words? 1000 or more words = full essay (no points lost)  |  750-999 words = partial essay (20 points lost)  |  Fewer than 750 words = incomplete essay (ZERO on the entire essay until a longer version is submitted)
• Title (5 pts) – Do you have an original title? “Literacy Narrative” or “Essay #1” or “Personal Essay” are not titles. They are just statements of what the thing is. Would you want to read a book called Romance Story? No. Not really. Come up with an original and engaging title.
• Format (5 pts) – Does the paper follow a basic college-acceptable format (MLA or APA)? Usually, unless a professor asks for something specific, you should include identifying information in the top left corner of the first page (your name, the professor’s name, the class, and the due date). Also, you should include a header with your last name and the page number, and you should use a consistent font throughout with double-spacing and indented paragraphs. See the Sample MLA Paper in the assignment instructions for more details on how to correctly format an MLA-style paper. Examples of APA style can be found in the course readings as well.

Before you submit the final version of your paper, you will want to look over the rubric and ask yourself the questions detailed in each description and verify that you have successfully completed each one.^[1] If you have no idea what a particular category is asking for, check with your instructor during office hours or the writing studio time to have them look over your paper and/or provide you with more information or a better explanation.